got to see sagan's neck.r knew what it looked like. what is it like stepping into his shoe, did you know him? >> we met when i was in high school. i was a 17-year-old kid, born ined brntion where i'm from. and i-- bronx in the house. so i, my application to colleges were dripping with the universe because i had no one known i had wanted to do this since i was nine, hi an answer for all those results that ask the annoying question, what do you want to be when you grow up. by the time i was 11 i said astrophysicist and they would just walk away. they quickly ended that conversation. so unknown to me, the admissions office at cornell forwarded my application to carl sagan for him to react. and he then sent me a personal letter, there it was, carl-- he had already been on the tonight show, best selling books, already famousment and he invited me to cornell to help me decide whether i would choose cornell for my college. (applause) that's not even it. i went up, i went to cornell, he greeted me outside. and we wen

like carl sagan, whose cosmos is back on tv now, carl sagan once said we are the universe's way of thinking about itself. we are a collection of atoms and particles just like the rest of the universe, but we have the power to theorize, to go out there and collect data and to understand the context of this wonderful universe we live in. >> it sounds almost theological. think it's a similar impells that drives people to theology and science. you want to understand the bigger picture. i think science is different than theology in many ways, one of which is you've got to make predictions and if the predictions don't come true, you throw away your theory. the wonderful thing now is this extrapolation from allan booth and collaborators over 30 years ago somehow miraculously seemed to get the right answer and our ability to comprehend our cosmos has been demonstrated once again. >> ifill: but it still requires corroboration. >> oh, absolutely. this is a result of the specific tellscope called the bicep 2 collaboration. they're very, very good. i know a lot of scientists on this experiment. they're

banner reading "japanese only" was displayed at the sat ma stadium when they played a match against sagan tosu. j league executives reprimanded the club and ordered their march 23rd home game to be played without any fans in the stands. >> translator: any foreigner seeing that language would have taken it as discrimination. i think it was discrimination, too. >> he says ur rawa officials failed to remove the banner until the end of saturday's game. the club had been informed about the banner about an hour earlier. the league also says the club bears grave responsibility because its support es have repeatedly caused trouble including a similar problem in 2010. the world soccer body fifa adopted a resolution for calling for stronger actions again racism and discrimination. >>> tokyo police believe they may have a lead in their search for the person who defaced books related to ann frank and the holocaust. they're questioning a man who has reportedly admitted to vandalizing books. staff at eight tokyo libraries discovered pages torn or cut out of ann frank's diary. someone also damaged biogr

. >> and carl sagan, what i love about the series you have done is it makes space exciting again to younghave young sons who will be enthralled by this. when i was young the family got together and watched the rockets going to space. and i have felt disheartened it has come to a halt. do you think the series and the movie may galvanize again man to go off into space. >> man and women. >> and women, i'm sorry. >> it's funny you say that. >> i was busted there. >> that's so funny. the original series was going to be called "man and the cosmos" and my first cost contribution if you say that, you will feel silly in about 20 years. that's the dream of the series is first of all we are coming out of the clinch, this failure of nerve, this retreat into magical thinking away from reality is ending. we rediscovered our courage and ready to look at the cosmos and dream. >> to me, it doesn't matter what it costs. we spend billions and trillions going to war all the time. for the sake of a space travel initiative if i was a president i would want to inspire people. >> we want to influence the people

from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, used by a british astronomer and carl sagan.are looking for intelligent life somewhere else in the universe. the universe is a very big place. we have not found evidence but that does not mean they are not out there. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. >> of course, he was talking about weapons of mass destruction. >> this gets transferred over to iraq. where it makes no sense, i might add. exchange to play and from the pentagon briefings, when rumsfeld first described his ideas about the known unknown to the public, questioned by nbc's pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. >> in regard to iraq, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, is there any evidence to indicate iraqi has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction? because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between baghdad and these terrorist organizations. thatports that say something has not happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are ns, things that we know, as wel

scripting by ann druyan who's genetically linked to the original "cosmos" series as co-writer with carl saganke this thing work. >> seth: it was great. and also, you're super cool in it. you're driving around in a spaceship, which is pretty exciting. >> oh, yeah, that's -- it's a badass. i thought i was biased initially, but it's a badass ship. >> seth: right. >> yeah, yeah. >> seth: like, when you saw it you were like, "yes, please." >> yes! >> seth: a lot of times documentaries focus on the achievements of science. you wanted to approach it a little differently. explain how. >> well, no. so, a documentary -- typically you bring together the latest discoveries, you stitch 'em up and say, "here it is. look what we know. look how good we are." and "cosmos" has some of it, but at its best it's really showing how and why science matters to us as a civilization and even as a species. so that by the end of the program and, at the end of the series, you walk away saying, "i'm empowered to do something about my future because i know how science works." and science -- if you don't know science in the

so carl sagan use that expression again and again and again and again and it makes sense in that context but just imagine a u.n. weapons inspector going to iraq goes to a building where he expects to find w m d and finds nothing that's not the absence of evidence that's evidence of absence that's evidence he went to this place you looked for evidence that you expected to find there and you found nothing we're going to look at a clip now with errol morris this amazing documentary of the unknown known about don rumsfeld watch. reagan was up a floor above. i was with my wife joyce. i had a man glued at my hip ready to tell me if governor reagan called and wanted me to be vice president. the press. was filled with this excitement about the possibility of president reagan selecting gerald r. ford i was stunned at the thought it's like sticking four hands on the steering wheel you're going to end up putting the truck in the ditch my phone for it was governor reg he said don i want you to know that i decided to have george bush be my vice presidential nominee i said faith and asked i am so reli

. >> carl sagan did ""cosmas" bac in the 80s, right?. >> i think science should be fascinating to everyone but it's all about the approach in telling the stories. >> i guess so. when i talk about the universe, i got good material. so people used to say, well, how do you balance entertainment with the science? like i said, when i look up, i am entertained, just by thinking about what the universe has. >> but the question is an appropriate question. you want to teach people, you want to education people but you don't want to make it feel like they're getting it in the form of a textbook. >> or a lecture. >> correct. >> what distinguishes "cosmos" from every other documentary we are presenting some actual knowledge but the real takeaway is what role that knowledge plays in who and what we are and what kind of responsibilities we have given that knowledge to tend to our civilization and to the earth. >> and knowing you for long time now, you never dumb down the information, which i think is very important. >> and the viewer knows that. you